As we wrote on August 30, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah receives an average of $152,050.07 each year in state and federal funds. Representative Carl Wimmer (R-Herriman) plans to propose legislation that would restrict Planned Parenthood’s access to government money. We interviewed Wimmer and Karrie Galloway, CEO of Planned Parenthood in Utah, to hear their perspectives on the proposal. Watch this video:

What do you think? Should the Legislature block the state from giving government funding to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers?

Here’s the script of the video:

VOICE-OVER: The state and federal government annually give almost $2 million in taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood inUtah. On average, $152,000 of those tax dollars are handed out by the state. Representative Carl Wimmer is proposing a bill that would stop the state from giving taxpayer funds to organizations inUtah that perform abortions – such as Planned Parenthood.

REP. CARL WIMMER 1:30: “Planned Parenthood on a national level is the largest abortion provider in the country.” 1:43: “They just started maybe within the last two years providing elective abortions here inUtah. I want to fight back and push back against the creep that we are seeing; the increased abortion services that are happening in this state.”

VOICE-OVER: The main reason Representative Wimmer wants to stop government money from going to Planned Parenthood is that it provides abortions. And even though no taxpayer dollars pay directly for abortions, Representative Wimmer says that sending taxpayer dollars to abortion providers remains a problem.

WIMMER 8:33: “The Health Department can allocate it elsewhere, as long as they’re not allocating it to an agency or to a private organization that provides abortion.”

VOICE-OVER: Karrie Galloway, the CEO of Utah’s Planned Parenthood, has a different opinion on the matter.

KARRIE GALLOWAY 29:15: “Abortion is legal, and unfortunately a necessary service for people who have a pregnancy that is incompatible with life of the mother or life of the fetus.” 30:00: “I wish we could work on the other end of this to prevent unintended pregnancies through responsible sexuality education.”

GALLOWAY 23:00: “Less than $200,000 comes from contracts that we get through the state; a little under $2 million comes from the national family planning program, Title 10, and that subsidizes reproductive health care services for those 56,000 people. And the rest of it is raised either through people paying for those services or through foundations or private donations.”

VOICE-OVER: So if taxpayer funding from the state is pulled from Planned ParenthoodUtah, what does that mean for Utahns?

WIMMER 6:19: “Well, Planned Parenthood will not be shutting down; they’ll still be there for people to go in and pay for the services. I don’t know why we think and why we have this entitlement mentality that ‘just because the government is now not going to pick up the bill I can’t go there,’ well, you know what, you can still go there.”

VOICE-OVER: But Ms. Galloway has a different answer.

GALLOWAY 24:55: “Less services, most importantly, the chlamydia money, the fertility preservation money. We service over 30,000 people with free STD tests and treating those people who are positive as well as their partners.”

WIMMER 2:20: “They can never get around the fact that the vast majority of their money comes from providing abortion services on a national level, even on a state level. That is where the vast majority of their money comes from; they are an abortion provider first, and a health services provider second.”

STAND UP: So what do you think? Should the state ofUtah stop taxpayers’ money from going to Planned Parenthood? Because, remember, all public policy changes lives. For Sutherland Institute, I’m Alexis Young.